Advanced Topics in Asian Languages and Cultures (390-0-22)

Topic

Fate, Fortune, and Karma in East Asia

Instructors

Kevin Delaney Buckelew

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L04: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

AY22-23
Are our actions free or fated? What larger forces shape the choices we make? To what do we owe our successes, and what is to blame for our mistakes? In East Asian religions, such questions have been answered with reference to a variety of different concepts of fate, fortune, and karma. These concepts shape not only how people have viewed the world, but also how they have made their way through life. This class focuses on religious approaches to questions of destiny in premodern East Asia. We begin by studying Indian Buddhist ideas of karma and early Chinese notions of fate and fortune preceding Buddhism's arrival in China, then turn to the ways people in China and Japan negotiated these various concepts over the many centuries following the arrival of Buddhism. In the end, we discover important throughlines amid the diversity of religious responses to the problem of destiny in East Asian history.

Learning Objectives

1. Learn about the history of religion in East Asia by studying concepts of fate, fortune, and karma 2. Engage with key themes and methods in the academic study of religion 3. Develop skill in analyzing textual and visual primary sources, as well as in engaging with secondary scholarship 4. Build skill in critically and constructively analyzing complex subjects through reading, writing, discussing, undertaking research, and formulating original arguments

Class Materials (Required)

All assigned readings will be uploaded to Canvas.

Class Attributes

Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area